Free Republic

It seems the prosecutors feared it would just be too humiliating to admit they had nothing, and hoped they’d somehow stumble on . . . something. Still, Thursday’s final retreat, dropping most charges at the very end, was a shocker. It left the judge dismissing those charges “with prejudice,” so the state can never refile them. And Exxon’s infuriated lawyers say those claims “have cost in many respects the most severe reputation harm to the company and to the executives,” so they want still stronger sanctions. Judge Ostrager has 30 days to issue a decision. The prosecutors are surely praying he’ll find...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) ” Rep. Peter King, a moderate Republican who has represented a Long Island congressional district for nearly 30 years, announced Monday he won’t seek reelection, enhancing Democrats’ chances to grab yet another suburban House seat as they defend their majority in 2020.</p>

It was 1944. Martin Gelb, an orthodox Jew from Brooklyn, was behind Nazi lines with a .45 and a Tommy gun. “I was asked to do a lot of strange things, but you follow orders. It did get a little crazy,” the 100-year-old OSS veteran from Hudson, N.H., told the Herald last week. He was part of William “Wild Bill” Donovan’s small crew of intelligence operatives working with the French resistance, hunting down German scientists and rounding up war criminals. He was an expert radio operator who knew Morse code and International Morse code who slipped into France and Germany...

His research work was also groundbreaking. In 1973, Rosenhan published the paper “On Being Sane in Insane Places” in the prestigious journal Science, and it was a sensation. The study, in which eight healthy volunteers went undercover as “pseudopatients” in 12 psychiatric hospitals across the country, discovered harrowing conditions that led to national outrage. His findings helped expedite the widespread closure of psychiatric institutions across the country, changing mental health care in the US forever... ...Had Rosenhan been more measured in his treatment of the hospitals, had he included Lando’s data, there’s a chance a different dialogue, less extreme in...

President Trump and The First Lady Participate in a Wreath Laying and Deliver Remarks at the New York City Veterans Day Parade Veterans Day Parade NYC

President Trump’s recently announced adoption of Florida as his home state over his native New York follows a rich tradition of high-profile financiers who have ditched northeastern states for warmer climes with lower taxes. ... In 2017, Connecticut’s top 100 filers, out of a base of 1.8 million, paid $1.13 billion in income taxes, the equivalent of 12% of the state’s income-tax revenue for fiscal year 2018. New Jersey and Connecticut tax officials said it is too early for state revenue data to show whether the 2017 tax law Mr. Trump signed imposing a $10,000 cap on state and local...

Last Thursday, in a move that surprised everyone but perhaps shouldn’t have come as a surprise at all, New York State Attorney General Tish James withdrew two counts of fraud against ExxonMobil during her closing arguments in the flimsy case she and her predecessor, Eric Schneiderman, spent the last half-decade pursuing against the energy giant. Tellingly, AG James dismissed the two of her original fraud counts that were based on laws requiring demonstration of actual harm in order to obtain a positive judgment. Her suit claimed that ExxonMobil’s alleged “fraud” of keeping two separate estimates of the future costs of...

Rep. Ilhan Omar ripped McDonald’s on Thursday over its $42 million severance package for outgoing CEO Steve Easterbrook, who resigned last week after engaging in consensual affair with an employee. McDonald’s disclosed a filing that Easterbrook would receive six months of severance pay as well as stock considerations. The total value of Easterbrook’s severance package is nearly $42 million, according to an analysis by the executive compensation benchmarking firm Equilar. “McDonald’s former CEO violated company policy and was awarded almost $42 million,” Omar, D-Minn., wrote on Twitter. “Meanwhile, there are hardworking McDonald’s employees who deal with low wages and retaliation...

Major institutions should be broken up if necessary, Greenlight manager says NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Greenlight Capital manager David Einhorn said Monday that his hedge-fund firm is betting on the possibility of a major currency collapse and a surge in interest rates, citing ballooning government deficits in some of the world's most developed countries.The hedge-fund manager, who warned about Lehman Brothers' frailty before it collapsed last year, also said financial institutions that are deemed as "too big to fail," such as Citigroup Inc. /quotes/comstock/13*!c/quotes/nls/c (C 4.57, -0.02, -0.38%) , should be broken up. ReutersDavid Einhorn of Greenlight Capital. Greenlight has...

The Manhattan D.A.’s office has asked a judge to block Harvey Weinstein’s defense team from calling on a psychologist to testify about false memories and the distinctly Orwellian-sounding phenomenon they refer to as “unwanted voluntary sex.” In a court filing made public on Wednesday, prosecutors responded to a series of motions made by Weinstein’s legal team, including his request to call social psychologist Deborah Davis to testify about “the accuracy and reliability of memory in disputed sexual encounters,” including “the formation of fully false memories for events that never happened.” Specifically, Davis would testify about the “phenomenon of ‘voluntary unwanted...

Reducing Pete Buttigieg’s struggle to attract black support solely to black homophobia is not only erroneous, it is a disgusting, racist trope, secretly nursed and insidiously whispered by white liberals with contempt for the very black people they court and need. I have never been blind to this — the people who see black religiosity as an indicator of primitive thinking and lack of enlightenment. (For the record, I am bisexual and not a religious man.) They are those who see black people as a blight on our big cities, pathologically prone to violence and in need of pity and...

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., had a billionaire in his sights at a campaign rally in Iowa Saturday night — and for once, it wasn’t President Trump. “Tonight we say to Michael Bloomberg, ‘Sorry, you ain’t gonna buy this election,’” Sanders told a crowd in Coralville, outside Iowa City. “ … Those days are gone.” […] Sanders also excoriated Bloomberg for avoiding the earliest states on the primary and caucus calendar and focusing his efforts on the states that hold nominating contests on Super Tuesday and later in 2020. “You’re not going to get elected president by avoiding Iowa, New Hampshire,...

Apparently, the occasionally operating cortex kicked in yesterday, and the experience of mental activity temporarily threw Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez off her memorized talking points. She was in the midst of lecturing a crowd of Bernie-supporters, pacing around the stage with a hand-held microphone, engaging the crowd the way a fifth-grade teacher might lead along the children she is indoctrinating. But as she was building up to some sort of prepared punchline, she said, "Here's the deal" and then drew a blank. She actually used the expression "here's the deal" three times before coming up with the payoff.

Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) and Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) on Thursday rolled out a proposal for a “millionaires surtax,” amid a growing interest from Democrats in increasing taxes on the wealthy. “This is a bill designed to address two major problems of public policy: the lack of revenue, and inequality,” Beyer said on a call with reporters. “It’s a laser-focused solution that requires those who benefited the most from the economy to contribute in a way they simply haven’t been asked to before.” The lawmakers’ bill, which is being co-sponsored by Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), would create a 10-percentage...

Democratic 2020 presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren is expected to be joined at a town hall event in North Carolina on Thursday by Ayanna Pressley, the Massachusetts congresswoman who on Wednesday broke away from her Democratic “Squad” pack to support her home-state senator. The boost for Warren's candidacy comes as she has spent the week fending off attacks from former Vice President Joe Biden and other Democratic rivals -- and even from billionaires Bill Gates and Jamie Dimon. It also comes as Warren has seen a surge in the polls. The newest numbers show her surpassing Sen. Bernie Sanders -- the...

Elizabeth Warren may be surging in the polls, but you wouldn’t know it by the size of the crowd that heard her speak on Friday. The senator from Massachusetts spoke at a sparsely attended environmental forum in Orangeburg, South Carolina, on Friday. The auditorium where the event was held appeared as if it could hold hundreds of spectators, but there were no more than a few dozen who could be seen watching the event. **SNIP** Most of the Democratic candidates in the race skipped the event. When asked if it was wrong for the Democratic Party not to stage an...

Way- back machine .. In a move with no precedent in New York City history Mayor Michael Bloomberg will shut down after today the worship services of scores of what he calls “these religious groups.” At least 55 churches and synagogues are affected. On his weekly radio program Bloomberg was adamant. ... Bloomberg also said he dismissed religious freedom concerns by legislators in Albany. "I don't know what's going to happen in Albany. I can just tell you what's happening here. This is the last Sunday that these religious organizations will be able to have worship services

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has filed to have his name on the Alabama ballot along with other Democratic presidential contenders in 2020. Representatives for Bloomberg, 77, filed the paperwork with the Alabama Democratic Party in Montgomery on Friday, which could make Bloomberg an eligible primary candidate on March 3, Super Tuesday. .... Despite filing for paperwork, a representative for Bloomberg said the New York billionaire has still not confirmed if he will join the race and that the Alabama filing was strictly for deadline purposes.

President Trump presents the Presidential Citizens Medal posthumously to veteran Rick Rescorla. Rescorla, who was head of security at Morgan Stanley, is credited with saving thousands of lives when he implemented emergency evacuation procedures during the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center.

The Democratic plan to dominate state legislatures has its first electoral success. The National Democratic Redistricting Committee, led by former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder, is spending in key states to influence state Supreme Court races, with the end goal of redrawing election maps.. ... Eric Holder will be celebrating this week for a decade. Democrats .. will redraw Virginia’s legislative district lines after next year’s census. The Old Dominion was already moving left, though the redistricting power likely cements Democratic dominance over Virginia for the next 10 years. This was Mr. Holder’s plan.. Holder was launching the National Democratic...